Legal Updates

Workplace whistleblowers are protected by law and employers have to be extremely careful not to persecute them for their activities. In one case that proved the point, two police detectives who were removed from undercover duties after making complaints about management won the right to substantial compensation.

A couple found out the hard way why land conveyancing is a job for professionals when they ended up marooned in their bungalow, without any right of access to water or electricity, following a dispute with their neighbours.

When someone dies there are various forms that need to be completed for inheritance tax purposes, even if there is no inheritance due on the estate. However, the forms are different depending on whether or not IHT is due.

As any property professional will know, negotiations can be tense and it is common for various draft agreements to fly between parties without any final deal in fact having been reached. Exactly that happened in one case involving the proposed lease of a luxury central London home at a rent of £6,500 a week.

Every parent hopes that their children will get on with one another – but, sadly, that cannot be guaranteed and one High Court case showed exactly why it is wiser to employ a neutral solicitor to administer your estate once you are gone.

Those who hold long leases over their homes often think that their position is almost exactly the same as a freeholder. However, one case in which a tenant with a 999-year lease was accused of making unauthorised alterations to his property showed how very wrong that assumption can be.

The Insurance Act 2015 came into force today. In practical terms, the effect of the Act is to reduce the number of 'technical' defences that can be used by insurance companies to avoid paying out on claims.

The complexity of the law relating to people of diminished mental capacity has long been a bone of contention and, with an ageing population, the courts are being increasingly tied up with mental capacity issues.

It is vitally important that defiance of court orders does not go unpunished and judges have a panoply of powers to enforce compliance. In one debt recovery action, two businessmen who repeatedly disobeyed an order requiring them to give full disclosure of their assets were given a month to fall into line or go to prison.

In a case which raised important issues in relation to public procurement, the High Court has refused to strike down a development agreement entered into by a local authority with the objective of comprehensively regenerating a run-down industrial estate.

Recognition of ‘units’ of workers for the purposes of collective bargaining can be a thorny issue and that was certainly so in one case in which supermarket chain Lidl fiercely objected to 223 warehouse workers – representing only about 1.2 per cent of its total 18,000-plus workforce – forming such a unit.

Fringe benefits provided to employees are usually taxable – but there are exceptions, and one of them came under detailed scrutiny in a case involving a free bus pass issued to a local authority worker.

In a guideline decision which reinforced the rights of agency workers, a tribunal has underlined in the context of an NHS whistleblowing case that it is legally possible to have one job but more than one employer.

Contractual deadlines can be very tight and the financial consequences of breaching them are often severe. In one case which underlined the point, a cruise ship operator won Euros 770,000 in damages from a shipyard after a major refurbishment of its flagship was held up for a month, largely due to strike action.

In a guideline decision which gives succour to victims of violent crime, a tribunal has boosted the compensation hopes of a former bus driver who endured years of disabling mental illness after he was attacked by two fare-dodgers.